How Not to Talk About your Child's Weight

This week, Michelle Obama, trying to promote efforts to combat obesity, described taking her kids to the pediatrician and being told that they were overweight. She also mentioned that President Obama had referred to one of their daughters as “chubby.” These remarks caused consternation among eating disorders professionals, because of their apparent overemphasis on weight and dieting, rather than on healthy eating and health in general. Too often, when people talk about the obesity epidemic, it sounds like an attack on the overweight.

There are better ways to promote healthful eating than to call a youngster “chubby.” Those who treat eating disorders strive to help their patients move away from dieting and strict rules about good and bad foods. They aim to help their patients be less rigidly focused on a number and a weight and instead aim for healthy behaviors. One of the challenges in treating people with eating disorders is when the culture at large supports exactly the same attitudes that get in the way of fighting an eating disorder. In this link, Laura Collins, the executive director of FEAST (Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders), writes about how some of the First Lady’s comments sound in the eating disorders world. In a later post, she also mentions speaking to a member of the First Lady’s staff and explaining these issues. It will be interesting to see if this will have any effect on the way Michelle Obama talks about her daughters’ eating habits in the future.